@gwd3.bsky.social
There's a contradiction in Trump's posture towards Europe and NATO. They want Europe to start taking care of their own back yard, so the US can focus on other things. But if Europe spends its own money, Europe decides how to spend it. If you give up your soft power, you don't have it any more.
December 19, 2025 at 8:46 PM
There's a contradiction in Trump's posture towards Europe and NATO. They want Europe to start taking care of their own back yard, so the US can focus on other things. But if Europe spends its own money, Europe decides how to spend it. If you give up your soft power, you don't have it any more.
"Europe acting like a Great Power would [play out by Trump and Putin] saying that whatever the Europeans are doing is super frustrating, and calling all the leaders bad names. That's exactly what we're seeing." www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiTN...
Europe's great power move: EU secures Ukraine funding
YouTube video by Anders Puck Nielsen
www.youtube.com
December 19, 2025 at 8:35 PM
"Europe acting like a Great Power would [play out by Trump and Putin] saying that whatever the Europeans are doing is super frustrating, and calling all the leaders bad names. That's exactly what we're seeing." www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiTN...
Reposted
Kind of interesting: I thought the thing where the word "capitalism" is so vague it can mean anything from consumerism cronyism to the right to own private property was relatively recent, but here's Chesterton complaining about it in 1927
December 11, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Kind of interesting: I thought the thing where the word "capitalism" is so vague it can mean anything from consumerism cronyism to the right to own private property was relatively recent, but here's Chesterton complaining about it in 1927
"LLMs just predict the next word" *does not prove* that LLMs don't think. The best way to predict weather is to have an accurate model of the weather. The best way to predict what a human would write next is to have a model of a human mind. A system which *did* think would perform the best.
December 9, 2025 at 11:36 AM
"LLMs just predict the next word" *does not prove* that LLMs don't think. The best way to predict weather is to have an accurate model of the weather. The best way to predict what a human would write next is to have a model of a human mind. A system which *did* think would perform the best.
I'm now taking Xen consulting engagements. www.laleolanguage.com/consulting
Xen Virtualization Consulting - George Dunlap
Xen virtualization consulting from George Dunlap. 20 years of Xen Project expertise in x86 internals, scheduling, security, and open-source governance.
www.laleolanguage.com
December 8, 2025 at 1:43 PM
I'm now taking Xen consulting engagements. www.laleolanguage.com/consulting
Reposted
I thoroughly recommend reading all of Cory Doctorow's recent speech on AI skepticism, it's crammed with new arguments and interesting new ways of thinking about these problems pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/p...
Pluralistic: The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI (05 Dec 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.net
December 7, 2025 at 10:21 PM
I thoroughly recommend reading all of Cory Doctorow's recent speech on AI skepticism, it's crammed with new arguments and interesting new ways of thinking about these problems pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/p...
Worth repeating on Cloudflare's second outage in a week, given they've been rewriting things in Rust: "The idea that new code is better than old is patently absurd. Old code has been used. It has been tested. Lots of bugs have been found, and they’ve been fixed."
Things You Should Never Do, Part I
Netscape 6.0 is finally going into its first public beta. There never was a version 5.0. The last major release, version 4.0, was released almost three years ago. Three years is an awfully long tim…
www.joelonsoftware.com
December 5, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Worth repeating on Cloudflare's second outage in a week, given they've been rewriting things in Rust: "The idea that new code is better than old is patently absurd. Old code has been used. It has been tested. Lots of bugs have been found, and they’ve been fixed."
There's a theory that "casting holy lots" was helpful, not because it gave information, but because it got you doing something: options A, B, or C may all be good options if you commit to them, but dithering between them is the worst. Asking LLMs for advice may have the same effect.
December 4, 2025 at 1:26 PM
There's a theory that "casting holy lots" was helpful, not because it gave information, but because it got you doing something: options A, B, or C may all be good options if you commit to them, but dithering between them is the worst. Asking LLMs for advice may have the same effect.
Reading Matthew Sadler's "Game Changer" (2019), analyzing AlphaZero chess games against Stockfish 8, and seeing what Stockfish 17 makes of the games. In key moments, Stockfish 8 and 9 never see AlphaZero's moves (in the book); but so far Stockfish 17 always does.
December 1, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Reading Matthew Sadler's "Game Changer" (2019), analyzing AlphaZero chess games against Stockfish 8, and seeing what Stockfish 17 makes of the games. In key moments, Stockfish 8 and 9 never see AlphaZero's moves (in the book); but so far Stockfish 17 always does.
More than once:
My son: "My dad punched a window and got stitches"
Adult, confused and visibly concerned: "Um, really?"
Me to my son: "How old was I when I did that?"
My son: "Seven"
Adult, visibly relaxing: "Ah, I see."
My son: "My dad punched a window and got stitches"
Adult, confused and visibly concerned: "Um, really?"
Me to my son: "How old was I when I did that?"
My son: "Seven"
Adult, visibly relaxing: "Ah, I see."
November 27, 2025 at 9:34 PM
More than once:
My son: "My dad punched a window and got stitches"
Adult, confused and visibly concerned: "Um, really?"
Me to my son: "How old was I when I did that?"
My son: "Seven"
Adult, visibly relaxing: "Ah, I see."
My son: "My dad punched a window and got stitches"
Adult, confused and visibly concerned: "Um, really?"
Me to my son: "How old was I when I did that?"
My son: "Seven"
Adult, visibly relaxing: "Ah, I see."
Dating apps have a perverse incentive: if you find the love of your life, you stop being a customer. What if the dating app was instead a loss-leader, feeding into a relationship-building app or community? One that would gain the most money from you reaching your 50th wedding anniversary?
November 26, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Dating apps have a perverse incentive: if you find the love of your life, you stop being a customer. What if the dating app was instead a loss-leader, feeding into a relationship-building app or community? One that would gain the most money from you reaching your 50th wedding anniversary?
I mean, on the one hand I'm glad the case is robustly dismissed. But I'm afraid it gives the pro-Trump people the ability to delude themselves that Comey and James were freed on technicalities. Having the charges fall completely flat in court would have been more vindicating for both of them.
NEW: Indictment against LETITIA JAMES has also been DISMISSED because of the unlawful appointment of Lindsey Halligan storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Order on Motion to Dismiss – #140 in United States v. James (E.D. Va., 2:25-cr-00122) – CourtListener.com
ORDER AND ADJUDGED as follows: (1) The appointment of Ms. Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney violated 28 U.S.C. § 546 and the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. (2) All actions flowing from ...
storage.courtlistener.com
November 24, 2025 at 8:33 PM
I mean, on the one hand I'm glad the case is robustly dismissed. But I'm afraid it gives the pro-Trump people the ability to delude themselves that Comey and James were freed on technicalities. Having the charges fall completely flat in court would have been more vindicating for both of them.
QotD: "Facts don't care about your feelings." This is true, and IMO what makes them so limited in persuasive power. --Jon Bauman
November 24, 2025 at 2:03 PM
QotD: "Facts don't care about your feelings." This is true, and IMO what makes them so limited in persuasive power. --Jon Bauman
For the last decade or so of his life, one of my uncles became a sort of radicalized conservative. He was a white American, but lived in SE Asia. So those MAGA Twitter accounts based in Indonesia or Japan might be fake; but they could also simply be expats. #TryingToBeRational
November 23, 2025 at 9:55 PM
For the last decade or so of his life, one of my uncles became a sort of radicalized conservative. He was a white American, but lived in SE Asia. So those MAGA Twitter accounts based in Indonesia or Japan might be fake; but they could also simply be expats. #TryingToBeRational
Just "6-7"-ed by my 5-year-old son for the first time today.
November 21, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Just "6-7"-ed by my 5-year-old son for the first time today.
QoTD: If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag, wash it. -Norman Thomas, minister and social reformer (20 Nov 1884-1968). Courtesy of A.Word.A.Day
November 20, 2025 at 3:36 PM
QoTD: If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag, wash it. -Norman Thomas, minister and social reformer (20 Nov 1884-1968). Courtesy of A.Word.A.Day
What I saw early this morning: Jupiter and its moons, a long meteor, lots of satellites, gamma-Virgo (the major star closest to 3I/ATLAS at the moment).
What I didn't see tonight: 3I/ATLAS.
What I didn't see tonight: 3I/ATLAS.
November 20, 2025 at 6:27 AM
What I saw early this morning: Jupiter and its moons, a long meteor, lots of satellites, gamma-Virgo (the major star closest to 3I/ATLAS at the moment).
What I didn't see tonight: 3I/ATLAS.
What I didn't see tonight: 3I/ATLAS.
When you want to align the finderscope on your Dobsonian, so you train it on a bright-looking start, and it turns out to be Jupiter
November 20, 2025 at 6:25 AM
When you want to align the finderscope on your Dobsonian, so you train it on a bright-looking start, and it turns out to be Jupiter
Before synthesizers, people would try to minimize things like "string noise" (sound of fingers sliding across strings) from recordings. After, they became evidence non-generated content. I expect quirky / sub-optimal tics are going to do the same to mark non-LLM writing.
November 17, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Before synthesizers, people would try to minimize things like "string noise" (sound of fingers sliding across strings) from recordings. After, they became evidence non-generated content. I expect quirky / sub-optimal tics are going to do the same to mark non-LLM writing.
Modern iPhones don't come with a music playing app. They come with a music store, which you happen to be able to upload your own music into. But it's not structured to help you play your music; it's structured to sell you an Apple Music subscription.
November 7, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Modern iPhones don't come with a music playing app. They come with a music store, which you happen to be able to upload your own music into. But it's not structured to help you play your music; it's structured to sell you an Apple Music subscription.
QoTD: "We care centrally about the thought process behind words—the mental states of the mind and agency that produced the words. If you publish LLM-generated text as though it were written by someone, then you're making me interact with nothing." - User TsviBT on lesswrong.com
November 3, 2025 at 10:45 AM
QoTD: "We care centrally about the thought process behind words—the mental states of the mind and agency that produced the words. If you publish LLM-generated text as though it were written by someone, then you're making me interact with nothing." - User TsviBT on lesswrong.com
REALLY fascinating stuff. When injected, it may say something like (e.g., if ALL CAPS), "I notice what appears to be an injected thought related to the word LOUD or SHOUTING"
Emergent introspective awareness in large language models
Research from Anthropic on the ability of large language models to introspect
www.anthropic.com
October 31, 2025 at 10:00 PM
REALLY fascinating stuff. When injected, it may say something like (e.g., if ALL CAPS), "I notice what appears to be an injected thought related to the word LOUD or SHOUTING"
Three stages of comprehension reading the following selection from the Greek NT:
καὶ τὸ κοράσιον ἔδωκεν αὐτὴν τῇ μητρὶ αὐτῆς.
1. "And the <kosarion> gave it to their <mitri>" -- whatever a "kosarion" and "mitri" are.
καὶ τὸ κοράσιον ἔδωκεν αὐτὴν τῇ μητρὶ αὐτῆς.
1. "And the <kosarion> gave it to their <mitri>" -- whatever a "kosarion" and "mitri" are.
October 31, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Three stages of comprehension reading the following selection from the Greek NT:
καὶ τὸ κοράσιον ἔδωκεν αὐτὴν τῇ μητρὶ αὐτῆς.
1. "And the <kosarion> gave it to their <mitri>" -- whatever a "kosarion" and "mitri" are.
καὶ τὸ κοράσιον ἔδωκεν αὐτὴν τῇ μητρὶ αὐτῆς.
1. "And the <kosarion> gave it to their <mitri>" -- whatever a "kosarion" and "mitri" are.
"Gradually, then suddenly" applies to completing new features as well. "Make the change easy, then make the easy change" means lots of thinking and infrastructure work with no obvious results; but once the infrastructure is there, things often come together very quickly.
October 3, 2025 at 11:22 AM
"Gradually, then suddenly" applies to completing new features as well. "Make the change easy, then make the easy change" means lots of thinking and infrastructure work with no obvious results; but once the infrastructure is there, things often come together very quickly.
